Ed represents growth companies and startups as well as the venture capital, growth, and private equity funds that invest in them. He joined Lowenstein Sandler as a summer associate in 1991 and co-founded the firm’s Tech Group in 1998; it has become one of the nation’s leading practices, with Dow Jones ranking Lowenstein among the five most active law firms in America for venture capital and private equity deals (2013).

Chambers USA ranked Ed among the 22 best lawyers in Startups & Emerging Companies–USA–Nationwide; of those, Ed is the only lawyer based in New York (2018 edition). Similarly, Best Lawyers in America (2017 edition) named Ed the New York City Venture Capital Lawyer of the Year.Chambers USA also ranked Ed among the best lawyers in Corporate/M&A–New York and in Investment Funds: Venture Capital–USA–Nationwide. Chambers states, “‘One of the best venture capital lawyers in the country–period’ is how clients describe Edward Zimmerman; with a practice covering the East and the West Coasts, Zimmerman enjoys a superb reputation across America, and [he] has also worked on deals abroad.”

Since 2005, Ed has been an Adjunct Professor of Venture Capital at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business. From 1994 through 2004, Ed served as an adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School. He has also guest-lectured at Harvard Business School, Sciences Po (Paris), MIT, Wharton, Johns Hopkins, NYU, and the London School of Business, and he has publishedcase studies through Columbia's Graduate School of Business.

Ed has spoken at venture fund annual meetings in Stockholm, Berlin, Tel Aviv, and Copenhagen, and he works extensively with European and Israeli startups and venture/growth funds. Ed has angel-invested in 100+ startups (with more than 25 exits) and 50+ venture funds.

Ed has published more than 80 columns on tech startups and growth companies (and sometimes wine) on The Wall Street Journal’s Accelerators page and Experts page. Ed currently serves as a Wall Street Journal Expert Panelist. Ed has also authored over 35 additional articles in Forbes, the National Law Journal, New York Law Journal, and Wine & Spirits, among other publications. He served as an editor for an M&A chapter in an American Bar Association book and chaired a committee in the National Venture Capital Association’s Model Legal Documents Project (the group which created the model legal documents for venture capital transactions).

Ed was appointed to the Conseil Stratégique de l'Attractivité of France, where he served as part of a 30-member group of international business leaders advising the government and President of France. He has similarly been invited to the White House and the Élysée Palace to meet with senior officials to discuss how America and, separately, France, can enhance their communities of startups and tech investors. Ed has made numerous appearances on television and radio (in the United States and Europe) to comment on startups and venture markets.

A passionate wine enthusiast, Ed has written about wine and wine tech and was the host of Radio Uncorked, a wine radio show produced by Infinity Broadcasting and aired on KYOU Radio in San Francisco, Napa, Sonoma and the surrounding area. Ed was inducted as a chevalier in the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin at the Château du Clos de Vougeot in France and was named an official ambassador to the appellation of Chateauneuf- du-Pape at the Palais des Papes in Avignon. Ed has worked harvest (briefly) in France and California, where he was involved in vinifying a wine granted a perfect 100-point score by Robert Parker. Ed's vinous adventures are the subject of the opening pages of In Search of Bacchus (by James Beard Award Foundation finalist George Taber). He has also been profiled in Wine & Spirits (March 2017) for his obsession with Burgundy.

Ed presently serves on the Board of Trustees of Harvey Mudd College. He was a board member of and, for 25 years, has been pro bono counsel to New York Live Arts (formerly Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company) which named Ed its 2018 Live Ideas Honoree. Ed and his wife, Betsy, co-founded and ran for nearly a decade the HAPI Foundation, a children's charity, which raised and granted several million dollars.

Ed graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law (1992) (comment editor, Journal of International Business Law) and Haverford College (1989) (Phi Beta Kappa).

PRESS MENTIONS

October 29, 2018

Billboard magazine mentions the role Lowenstein Sandler’s Tech Group Chair, Ed Zimmerman, played in producing a song by four-time Grammy Award winner and blues legend, Keb’ Mo’. In discussing the song “Put a Woman in Charge,” Billboard quotes Keb’ Mo’ as he explains how he and his co-writers were working on the song:

“[T]hen we realized that we needed a guest. So I called my friend, Ed Zimmerman, in New York and was telling him about it, we needed a guest. He said, “I know somebody that might want to do it.’ And I’m like, ‘Who?’ He said, ‘How about Rosanne Cash?’ And I went, ‘Holy Moly, that’s perfect.’ We called her up and she said yes and we sent her the files. She sung the song. We put her on the record and got some backgrounds going, and we had a record.”

Rosanne Cash, a best-selling author, is also a four-time Grammy Award winner. The song was released to great reviews. Zimmerman, who is also an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, published a case study about Keb’ Mo’ in September 2018, and the artist came and lectured at the Venture Capital class that Zimmerman teaches there. Mo’ ultimately performed the song for the class, so it premiered before 80 or so MBA students a few days prior to the song’s release.

The Wall Street Journal quotes Ed Zimmerman on the challenges of starting new business lines in the context of Airbnb’s efforts to launch their new Experiences offering. (subscription required to access article)

Ed Zimmerman's third installment of his series on bicoastal venture funding in Forbes features an interview with ActionIQ's founder Tasso Argyros, a successful Silicon Valley startup founder. The article discusses why Argyros relocated to NYC to start a deeply technical enterprise company and whom he tapped for venture funding.

November 2, 2015

Ed Zimmerman's second installment of his series on bicoastal venture funding in Forbes provides advice for East Coast founders seeking successful bicoastal Series B venture funding. In this article, Ed profiles the successful approach taken by Hicham Oudghiri, co-founder/CEO at Enigma.

October 28, 2015

Ed Zimmerman's first installment of his series on bicoastal venture funding in Forbes talks about how startups can find the right investor even if they're 3,000 miles away.

September 10, 2015

Ed Zimmerman's column in Forbes guides VCs and founders on recent Delaware law developments in how startups should handle board minutes.

Ed Zimmerman's article in Forbes discusses how and when to tell your startup or growth company's investors the deep dark secrets about your company – before the term sheet or before the pitch meeting.

February 24, 2015

Fortune reports on Lowenstein Sandler Tech Group Chair Ed Zimmerman's #GenderBiasPledge supporting women in startups and tech. Read the original Gender Bias Pledge Ed published on the Accelerators page of The Wall Street Journal last year after announcing it onstage at last year's VentureCrushNY event.